He almost believed it.
CHAPTER TWO
"Untie me."
She said it quietly.
Not a plea, a statement, the way someone speaks when they consider the matter already settled and are simply waiting for the other person to catch up.
Anthony kept his eyes on the path ahead. "Nay."
"I will nae flee."
"I ken."
She turned her head slightly, enough that he caught her profile, the sharp line of her jaw, the set of it. "Then why bind me?"
"Because I cannae afford to be wrong."
She held that a moment. Then faced forward again without another word, which told him more than argument would have.
She was thinking. Filing. Deciding what kind of man he was from the inside of the answer rather than the outside of it.
They rode with eight men surrounding them, spread wide enough to cover both shoulders of the path.
The glen fell away behind them and the terrain climbed, stone replacing grass, the track narrowing as it pushed toward the pass.
She sat straight-backed in front of him despite the rough ground, despite the angle of the ascent, refusing by will alone to lean back against his chest. When the path tilted and her weight shifted, she corrected it herself, silent and deliberate.
He noticed. He said nothing.
"How far?" she asked after a time.
"Two hours. Less if the pass is clear."
"And if it isnae?"
"Then longer."
She made a short sound, not quite a scoff. "Ye're a man of tremendous detail, me Laird."
"Anthony."
She said nothing to that. He wasn't sure why he'd offered it.
The fox trotted below them on the left side, picking its way across loose rock with a sureness that matched hers.
One of the younger lads riding ahead kept glancing back at it, then at her, then back at it again. Anthony tracked the look but let it go.
Superstition was a weed, you pulled it before it seeded, but you didn't pull it in front of an audience or it grew back threefold.
"The boy," she said. "James. Has he been seen by anyone before yer castle healer?"
"Two physicians. Both from the south."
"What did they say?"
"That his lungs were damaged and there was nothing to be done." He paused. "One suggested prayer."
